In Bangalore, there are dogs everywhere. I was there in Spring of 2010, and it was already 35C (95F) during the day. By the time it’s hot out, most of the dogs are taking naps in the shade, under cars or trees, basically anywhere that’s not super hot. I don’t blame them.

One of the things I found charming about Bangalore was the signage. There were so many hand-pained signs, on wood panels and on the sides of buildings. I came across this sign for John Panter on a long walk. I wasn’t sure what it meant. Who is John Panter? I guess if I wanted to find out, I’d just follow the arrow.

Taken with a Widelux F7, on Arista Premium 400 (-1).

This is my first published scan produced with VueScan. I decided that since my old Epson’s scanner software doesn’t work on Lion, and I hate the built-in scanning software, I decided to take the plunge and try VueScan. So far I’m happy with it.

Chitostyle is Chris Tong, a designer & front end engineer from Vancouver. Chris works for Pivotal Labs (San Francisco), largely for the Pivotal Tracker team. The last time Chris was visiting us, I took him around the corner to this dark brown wall that’s frequently tagged. I thought it would make an interesting backdrop for a portrait. As soon as the sun ducked behind the tall buildings on Mission Street, we went out and shot this.

I met Chris at a going-away party for my friend Jonathan, who was moving to Australia. These types of get-togethers are interesting because you get to meet friends of your friend that you haven’t met. I had the Canon AE-1 with me, and Chris and I drummed up a conversation about shooting film. I asked if he’d be up for doing a portrait some time. He’s a former film student, now getting an MFA in cinema, so he’s no stranger to this.

We met up this past Friday in front of the Castro Theatre. It was drizzly, but the light was pretty nice right at the ticket booth. We did two exposures, the one above and another. The other shows more of the theatre, but frankly I like the close-up head/shoulders shots more.

Taking two shots seems to be around right. In every case so far (knock on wood), one of them has been just what I wanted. This seems to be the case for my 4×5 portraits as well.

The Falco is the moniker of my youngest step-brother, Ranier. When my dad remarried, he became part of a family that aleady had grown kids. The best part of the deal for me was becoming a kuya, the filipino word for older male relative. Being an older brother means you need to have all the answers, or at least most of them. It means steering your younger sibling around life’s obvious obstacles and helping them out with the challenging ones. Having long talks with Ranier about food, life, and photography, reminded me of my own childhood and being the source of so much knowledge for my brother Tom. I still have a never-ending curiosity about how the world works, and I really like that trait in both Ranier and Tom.

My brief resurgence as a brother-mentor is pretty much over, and I’m thankful that I had a second go-’round.

Ranier writes two blogs, one about fashion and one about dating – check them out!